The Best Christmas Present
by annsan
Summary: Implied Slash; Brought about by a comment made by a friend; Tony contemplates what his best Christmas is this year.


As the room grew dark around him, Tony shifted restlessly in the uncomfortable chair. He longed to get up and walk around or at least to stretch his legs. Fear and worry kept him rooted to his spot at that moment just as he had been for the last sixteen hours. He'd never been someone to show emotion easily but had any one of his team mates walked in, they would have been able to see what he was thinking and feeling before he'd said a word. He was momentarily grateful that McGee and Abby had each left the day before. Yet at the same time he found himself wishing for a distraction, even one of Ducky's stories. Anything – just so he wasn't listening to the miserable silence of the hospital room.

"Come on, Jethro. You've slept long enough." Tony said, his voice slicing through the stillness in the room.

There was no response from the person in the bed though. and Tony sighed. He couldn't help wondering again about how completely stupid the whole incident was in comparison to how they both risked their lives on a near daily basis. They were both highly trained federal agents. He'd been a cop and Jethro was a Marine sniper, with skills as lethal as Ziva's. They both expected to die in the line of duty, gunned down in a firefight. Something as mundane as a skull fracture due to a fall off a ladder shouldn't have Gibbs hovering on the brink of coma.

The doctor, someone neither of them knew, had already suggested that any 'real' family members be called. He'd even bristled at the thought of Tony being emergency contact and next of kin. Since he didn't make any comments or direct questions, Tony had chosen to not offer any type of explanation on his own. He'd decided instead to simply sit with Gibbs and wait to call Jackson once he was awake so that they could both speak to him.

Tony shifted in the chair and resumed quietly puzzling over what Gibbs had been doing on the ladder in the first place. When he'd left that morning to run some errands, pick up more clothes, and join in a basketball game with some friends, Gibbs hadn't indicated what his plans were. Tony had assumed from the way he was dressed in older clothes that it would be a day spent working on the boat.

He'd just left the store where he'd picked up one last present for Gibbs when his cell phone had rung. The unknown number had made him groan and long to ignore the call, fearing that they were about to get called in for a case. Normally with part of the team out traveling, they would have been pulled from the rotation. Yet the recent storm and a spate of illness had most of the teams at the Navy Yard working short handed, so the MCRT was no different. They'd remained on emergency rotation, even with the rare pleasure of having both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off.

He'd answered the phone as he was putting his bag in the back seat of the car. The strange voice on the other end identifying the person as calling from the emergency room caught his attention and had him speeding towards the hospital in bare minutes.

He heard the overhead speakers in the hall announce at end to visiting hours but ignored the directive. The staff already knew they would be unable to convince him to leave. Tony stretched out his neck a little and contemplated turning off the dim light that shone from the other side of the room. He decided to leave it on as it would give him a clearer view of the man in the bed as it got darker. He let his mind wander back to the puzzle at hand.

The lack of details on the accident kept his brain spinning. All in all, that was a good thing; otherwise he knew he'd be more frantic than he was. Gibbs didn't get hurt – it was as simple as that. *He*--Tony – was the accident prone one out of the two of them. Gibbs was the one who was supposed to be sitting at his side waiting for *him* to wake up. Not the other way around. This, sitting at Gibbs' bedside, just felt unnatural and Tony wouldn't feel at ease until his world had been righted.

The noise coming from the hall had quieted somewhat, as had the buzz in Tony's head. He'd stopped actively trying to figure out how and why Gibbs had fallen and returned to silently willing the other man to wake up. He wouldn't vocalize his fears but Tony had had enough concussions to know that the length of time Gibbs was unconscious wasn't exactly a good thing. Muscles cramping, Tony started to pull his hand back, no longer able to ignore the need to stretch. He stilled as a low groan sounded and fingers scrabbled to hold on to his.

"Jethro?" He stood quickly and leaned closer to the bed, staring at eyes that were still closed.

Tony waited none too patiently, eyes moving over the still body taking in any movement that they could find. "Come on, Jethro. Come back." He whispered.

A sudden, loud inhalation of breath filled the quiet, followed by a slow, silent exhalation and then Tony was looking into cloudy, but open blue eyes. "Tony?"

"Hey," he replied.

"What time…?"

"Late. Almost midnight."

"Wasted…the day…"

"No. But don't you ever scare me like that again."

"Orders, DiNozzo?"

"In this case, yes, Jethro."

The quiet, vocal conversation was nothing in comparison to what two pairs of eyes were saying to each other. Tony was the one who finally broke visual contact and straightened slowly.

"I should call the nurse."

As he moved to press the call button that would interrupt their quiet and bring in the noisy medical world, Gibbs squeezed his fingers as tightly as he could.

"What?" Tony glanced over and noted that Gibbs looked very much like he wanted to go back to sleep. His eyes lowered to the lips he loved so much and watched as they moved to form words.

"Merry Christmas, Tony."

Tony smiled, thinking how something as simple as hearing Gibbs' voice would undoubtedly become his best Christmas present.


End file.
